


Sleep Paralysis

by terrible_titles



Category: The Haunting of Hill House (TV 2018)
Genre: Angst, F/M, I don't know, Weirdness, an exploration of olivia and hugh's differing parenting philosophies, lol don't believe that, why won't this show release me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-13 21:24:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16480028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/terrible_titles/pseuds/terrible_titles
Summary: "And even if they’re broken or addicted or joyless, or yes, even if they die, we have to watch it all because we’re parents. And that’s the deal we make. Whatever that life is, we bear witness."





	Sleep Paralysis

               Steve’s denial fed him all those disconnected years, until his life was made of nothing but sand and soot. Shirley’s anger kept her sated and cool, unflinching in the face of emptiness. Theo’s detachment was merely a way to subsist unbroken, unbent, free from feeling. Luke’s addiction was a way to feed a bottomless pit when he was starving and terrified. But it was Nellie—his beautiful Nellie—cold death in a perfect face—that nearly made him regret.

               Hugh sat in the eerie room, unsure of the colors in the chairs, the walls, the wood of that casket— _no, my dear, look away, don’t watch, don’t move._  

               There comes a time when all one can do is leave the house, leave the house with the children, usher them towards life and safety, and wonder if it was enough.

               Hugh had been unsure, when Steve was born, that it had been the right thing. He never mentioned it, of course, but he would gaze upon the tiny life he and Olivia made, the creation of an entire universe yawning new in his arms, and wonder lamely how he might direct that life, and all the others, and whether being the god of a new universe was something anyone should ever want.

               Liv was beauty. Liv was perfect. She held them each close to her skin, her delicate heartbeat nurturing each of their own. Soft hair fluttering over their tiny faces to curtain them from the cold, the brightness, the over-stimulation of the world outside. “You are mine, forever,” she whispered, the first words each of their children ever heard.

               But he and Liv—they were not, in fact, gods.

               Hugh never wondered why the twins; he would never do that. Especially late at night, when he would sometimes see the cold, decaying arm snake around his waist as if to ensnare him.

               He never thought it was because of Steve’s inability to see, Shirley’s inability to listen, Theo’s inability to touch.

               He never wondered if the twins had still been raw and open and accepting.

               He never understood his children that well. He had simply taken their hands and fled far away from the house that wanted to hold them forever.

               “I might have taken you, too,” Hugh believed. “I might have found your hand in the night and pulled you away from that which had overtaken you.”

               He could never think of the house as evil, because it held Liv; it became his Liv, and Liv was never evil. Only—perhaps—misguided. Gods could sometimes be. People didn’t think of them that way now, of course. Gods were mysterious, unknowable entities which swam in and out of people’s lives, closer at times, further at others, never touching. Never knowing.

               But in days long past, gods were flawed and imperfect, just as aching and empty as humans. Just as poisoned by their own fears. Just as haunted by the ghosts of their own making.

               Olivia could not save her children from their fates, and Hugh was ridden with guilt from it, ever on the periphery of their broken lives, ever the sole witness, and—

              “ _You were meant to be here, Liv!_ ” he would never scream.

               And then the arm, pulling him back from the torment of his thoughts, pulling him into the shell of her person. He would shudder helplessly within her, though his face would remain dry of tears, there had never been tears, there could never be tears, he was inhuman, he was not a god. She would hush him and he would not imagine her face, so wide and hurt and angry, because he knew she was thinking the same thing.

               You were meant to be here, Hugh. All of you, my darlings. I sacrificed everything for you, and you left me here alone, alone, alone—

               Steve, alone in the hurt he never acknowledged, and Shirley, alone because she turned it all away, and Theo, alone in grief she refused to feel, and Luke, alone without understanding, and Nellie, alone, just alone, always alone, was there something he could have done? Could he have stopped it? Should he have interfered? This universe, these stars spiraling out and away from him, burning up so hot and fast—could he have protected them, or was it madness to believe he had any control of their destinies at all, the madness of Liv, the madness of love—oh _gods, Liv, at least you tried._

               He answered Nellie’s call that night. There was nothing he could do, but he could answer the phone. Her voice was deep and cloying scratching from the inside of his belly, and he wasn’t sure what to say, but Liv said it somewhere, Liv told him, Liv guided him through the conversation when everything inside him wanted to freeze in fear.

               “I’m at home,” she told him. The home that was the coldness of a star which had flamed out, a breath held and never released, a cracked world frozen in time—his Nellie, she had taken her. Their fingertips brushed against the cool of the night, across the dark skies, and then she slipped, just like that, not from his grasp, because he’d never had that. He’d never dared to think he could. He hadn’t the bravado of Olivia.

               Yet—  

               How can you just watch them die?

               _Our babies are dying._

               We must protect them from being devoured by a bottomless stomach.

               _They’re dying, Liv. Open the door._

               The world is hungry for their light, mad for their innocence.

               _I will make a promise to you that I will keep forever._

               He’d played that conversation, over and over, echoing through his memories long before it had taken place. The easiest promise he would ever make. His entire body ached with the longing to make right on it.

               But first--

               He stood vigil, though it had been so cold and lonely, watching the brokenness of his family, because he’d made another promise to the baby boy in Olivia’s arms all those years ago, and all his siblings after. 

               _I do not know how to be your shepherd, tiny star, but I will be your sentinel. I will push you out, then stay still and watch you until you spin far and away from me._

               Until this door closes between us and shatters your universe into a million tiny pieces like confetti.    


End file.
